I can't give up dieting!

[t00manytears]

I know deep down that dieting is keeping me locked in the binge-diet cycle and fuelling my BED but I feel like I cannot give it up. Is anyone else like this?

I have put on weight over christmas after losing 10lbs and getting to a weight I was comfortable with, now all I can think of is losing the weight again.

However I recognise that if I am ever to escape the cycle of dieting and binging I can no longer continue to diet.

Even though it is unhealthy going up and down the scale this way, it is ironically my way of maintaining my weight within a range of 7-10lbs which to my ED brain is better than learning to eat sensibly and staying at a heavier weight.

So tempted to go back on a diet, even if the weight loss is short term and I regain it it feels like I need to do it. The compulsion to diet is part of this condition isn't it.

Hi toomany, I came on here to find some support for exactly the same thing. I also have spent the last 6-8 years doing the exact same thing with my weight - at most I'm only around 7-10 lbs above where I'd be happy, but as soon as I reach a weight I feel happy at, I start to binge like crazy. And all the time in between is spent starting and stopping random diets and then binging and then stopping etc etc.

I have spent a lot of time reading and trying to succeed in stopping dieting - all of the intuitive eating stuff, but I inevitably come back to the same feeling of "oh gd this is going to make me really fat I really should just diet and get my weight down and then I can eat intuitively..." and start a diet again.

I made a promise to myself sometime in October that I would diet until my 42nd birthday (last week), and if it did not work I would never diet again. - I went on a very strict diet and lost 7 lbs and looked amazing. but I was really hungry all the time, and was completely obsessed with food, and beginning to get very disordered about it.
So I spent most of Christmas and new year and then of course my birthday week dealing with the fallout of the diet and am now a bit heavier than when I started and I think something has clicked in my head and I realise how futile it all is. And the fact that maybe I will put on some weight, but the world will still keep turning and it really is not the most important thing. Ive realised that until I can let go of the desire to be a certain weight, I will never be able to eat normally.

So for the last 3 days I have eaten what I wanted and then stopped, knowing that I can still have what I want whenever I next want it. It is a very freeing feeling and I felt very calm. Then, I was just coming to the end of Saturday, and decided in my head to fast today (Sunday). That started me off on a 4 hour binge of chocolate and crackers. It really made me realise how powerful a thing in my mind the idea of deprivation is. I wish I hadn't binged last night, but it really taught me something.

anyway, I'm back again and trying not to have restrictive thoughts and just go with it.
let's help each other and try and get better together?
I just want all the background diet talk/food noise to go away and to not really think too much about food.
sorry about the long post!

That's exactly where I am sosopurple, although I'm not quite ready to admit it is futile yet.

I have booked on to the eating less webinar (Gillian Riley - have you heard of her?) and she is anti diets but teaches you how to manage your addictive desire for food.

Although the course does not start for a few weeks so I keep thinking last chance to diet! Crazy huh?

I was doing ok last week and just eating when I was hungry, eating healthily plus maybe a treat or two in the evening but nothing out of control. Then I had some bad news on Wednesday and that set me off bingeing again. Not sure if I am overeating to deal with the sadness or if it is all just an excuse .. or maybe I just associate bad news with pigging out?

For me the danger time is in the evening, I can eat healthily in the day and don't even want to eat the bad stuff, but after my dinner it is like jekyll and hyde and the insatiable food monster comes out.

If I could just get myself to stop eating in the evening I reckon I could get things under control. I tell myself every day I won't pig out tonight but come the evening I lose my resolve.

I just want to be back where I was before christmas weight wise, so around 7lbs lower, but if it's going to go straight back on again what's the point?

I've got no advice, I'm the same. desperately, desperately fighting the urge to diet atm. my compromise is to make myself milkshakes that amount to the daily calories I should be having, to make sure i'm not under or over. then I'll feel like I'm doing a diet but not be.

i'm so fucked up, lol.

it's not even funny, I'm disgusted by my body atm.

Well, things have taken a turn for the worst for me this weekend unfortunately. I dieted Monday and Tuesday, then went away with work (travelling is always a trigger for me) and ended up going for a big, set thai meal so I couldn't even really choose what I was having, and it triggered the mother of all binges to the point where I got really really ill.

I know it is because my brain splits into diet= restrict and no diet = binge. If I had not tried to diet earlier in the week I doubt I would have binged so hard.

I've realised now that I HAVE to give up dieting and play the long game. I cannot continue like this, trying to diet and doing the exact opposite, it's crazy! I want out of the diet binge cycle that has plagued me since the age of 10!

The ED has ravaged my body and i feel all fat and flabby and none of my clothes fit, but I have to accept that and run with it if I am to give up dieting and get the problem resolved. I thought I could diet last week, but it's just created a desperate urge to binge.

I'm thinking of it a bit like when I fell pregnant, i knew I'd get bigger and I'd just have to ride it out until after the baby was born. I knew my clothes wouldn't fit, so I bought new (maternity) clothes. I didn't wake up everyday and think I have nothing to wear better go on a diet.

I'm giving myself six months of not dieting and focusing on trying to sort out the ED. It will probably be one of the hardest things I've done, as I feel safe when I'm dieting and like I'm undoing the binge. But I have to get better and heal the ED and if that means being fat for a while then so be it. Otherwise I'm just going to go round in ever-tighter circles.

Good luck...the key MAY be coming to terms with our weight? Theres worse things to be than podgy. Argh i cant tho, im not there :'(

I've just ordered some size 14 leggings from M and S . I thought those days were over! I practially lived in them for 2 years after my last pregnancy!

Have decided at the end of the day, I'd rather be fat and ED free than trapped in binge-diet hell any longer. What is the point of losing weight only to binge it back on again? In the last year I've been slim for a total of around 3 months, fat for around 6 and inbetween the rest of the time.

I have to give it a go - I'm giving myself six months to sort out the ED and not diet. During that time I will aim to eat healthily and some occasional treats but no focusing on weight loss or size. After 6 months I give myself the right to go back to dieting if it hasn't worked.

I've heard it said that, paradoxically it is only when we accept ourselves as we are that we can change so maybe this applies to our bodies too?

Really hope ur right! Tbh, id be slim trapped in the ED vs fat and healthy but the starve binge cycle is a recipe for weight gain so stuck with worst of both worlds!

I kinda find that extra exercise just makes me hungrier, so trying to work lowlevel 'activeness' into my day like i heard a doctor on the radio talking about. Then again, i have an active job and it doesnt make any difference, so....

The only way I can put up with giving up dieting is thinking back to when I fell pregnant.. I knew I'd put on weight and that weight loss would not be an option for a while, but it was worth it as I was getting a baby! I know not quite the same, as women are expected to put on weight in pregnancy.. but I kind of just went with the flow then, bought some nice maternity clothes and just thought, I'll deal with the weight gain later. I put on a lot of weight, but truly didn't care until after the baby was born.

Hopefully I won't gain a lot by giving up dieting.. although I am towards the fat end of my weight range now I generally don't go up and up. I'm hoping that eating healthily, not bingeing and learning to deal with cravings will result in my weight stabilising over the next few months especially if I can do a bit of exercise to firm up the wobbly bits. Whatever, anything's got to be better than the diet -binge cycle. It's hard though when I know I can lose 10lbs in 2 weeks through keto dieting, although I know it's not sustainable.

Have you tried either seeing a therapist or a dietician at all? I know not everyone either wants or can access psychological therapy. If you can it is certainly worthwhile having a good go at it. Years ago I actually have found that seeing a dietician helped me to experiment in a fairly controlled way (ie she weighed me weekly and we looked at patterns over time, not just 'ahh gone up this week') with what I could eat and maintain within a range long-term. I have successfully managed to do that - admittedly not that normally, but better than a full blown ED. Prior to that I was constantly losing weight because I so feared gaining weight if I ate anything. It is certainly the case bingeing is much more likely when dieting. Also going on fad diets/ omitting whole food groups etc tends to not help people long-term.

I love being on a diet
It's the only time I eat all the food groups and 3 meals a day

It makes me think about and plan my food, push myself to try new things etc.

When I'm not on a diet I skip meals and eat the same few foods
I don't need to lose weight sometimes I think I need to "diet" to maintain...